Archive

Category Archives for "Russ White"

QOTW: Genius

“Genius is long patience,” but it must be organized and intelligent patience. One does not need extraordinary gifts to carry some work through; average superiority suffices; the rest depends on energy and wise application of energy. It is as with a conscientious workman, careful and steady…
Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life

LinkedInTwitterGoogle+FacebookPinterest

The post QOTW: Genius appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: Breach Presumption

The hipster view of data loss seems to be a shrug of the shoulders these days. As a society, we give up financial data to people that steal it so often that we barely care. We shrug our shoulders, sigh at the inconvenience, set up a new account or two, and move on. Yes, sometimes the damage is more serious than unauthorized charges on our Visa cards, but that’s rare enough to avoid societal outrage. Rather, we’ve simply gotten used to the breaches. via ethan banks

The post Worth Reading: Breach Presumption appeared first on 'net work.

Reaction: Interoperate or Die

the-point-fred-wolf-1Ethan has an excellent post up on Interoperate or Die. Herewith, a few thoughts in response.

From my perspective, the importance of open standards in the world of network engineering can hardly be overstated. As networks become more complicated (or complex, depending on what word you want to use), having consistent interfaces will become increasingly important. Think of the old IP model — every transport runs on top of IP, and IP runs on top of every physical/link layer. Using IP as a “choke point” built a “wasp waist,” a single API everyone on both sides of the narrow point in the protocol layer could talk to.

in recent years, we’ve forgotten the wasp waist. We’ve built everything over HTTP, and everything over Ethernet over IP, and everything over GRE over IP, and… The entire stack, above IP, is a hornet’s nest of convoluted caverns and side halls pointing, apparently, everywhere at once (like the guy from the forest in The Point, above).

If you think of IP as an API (which is really what it is), the point is to have a single layer API between any two interacting systems. This creates a clean interaction surface that helps you to Continue reading

Worth Reading: Energy Prices and the Data Center

Energy is the biggest expense for data centers, and although efficiency improvements can help by reducing consumption, cost remains a critical factor in determining operating budgets. The recent crash in oil prices raises a number of questions about demand, but there’s more to the picture—especially for such a politically charged topic. via the data center journal

The post Worth Reading: Energy Prices and the Data Center appeared first on 'net work.

Out with the old: Make removing old technology part of your culture

Friday afternoon, late, and the new system is finally up. Users are logged in, getting their work done, and you’ve just received an email from the CTO (your boss’ boss’ boss’ boss, probably), saying what a good job the team did in getting things up and running so quickly. For once, in fact, the system went in perfectly. There was no close to team breakups over which technology or vendor to use; there were very few unexpected items that crept into the budget, the delays were minimal, and you even learned a couple of new skills to top it all off.

Wonderful, right? The perfect unicorn project.

But before you break open that bottle of bubbly (or whatever cold beverage is your choice), or maybe pop up a bowl of popcorn and sit down to a long deserved break binge watching the shows you missed pulling this thing together, you need to ask one more question:

Did you strip and sand first? Or did you just paint right on top?

Or don’t you remember the time you tried to paint that old trailer that had been sitting in your back yard for ages? Sure, it was covered in rust, dirt, Continue reading

Worth Reading: A map of the Internet in the US

The complexity and enormous costs of installing new long-haul fiber-optic infrastructure has led to a significant amount of infrastructure sharing in previously installed conduits. In this paper, we study the characteristics and implications of infrastructure sharing by analyzing the long-haul fiber-optic network in the US. via university of wisconsin

The post Worth Reading: A map of the Internet in the US appeared first on 'net work.

Worth Reading: The blame pipeline

But in a cross-discipline team, it is the team that is responsible for success or failure. Blame, if any, resides with the team itself and not the people that comprise it. That kind of insulation helps individuals rise above the fear of committing egregious errors and instead embrace the kinds of thinking needed to make new IT happen. via networking nerd

The post Worth Reading: The blame pipeline appeared first on 'net work.

How the Internet Really Works

Way back in April of 2014, I started a series over on Packet Pushers called “How the Internet Really Works.” This is a long series, but well worth reading if you want to try and get a handle around how the different companies and organizations that make up the ecosystem of the ‘net actually do what they do.

Overview
DNS Lookups
The Business Side of DNS (1)
The Business Side of DNS (2)
Reverse Lookups and Whois
DNS Security
Provider Peering Types
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (1)
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (2)
Standards Bodies
IETF Organizational Structure
The IETF Draft Process
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 1)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 2)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 3)
Internet Exchange Points
That Big Number Database in the Sky (IANA)
NOG World (Network Operator Groups)
The Internet Society

The slides that go with this set of posts are available on slideshare, as well. This set is in Ericsson format, but I have older sets in “vendor neutral” formatting, and even cisco formatting (imagine that!).

LinkedInTwitterGoogle+FacebookPinterest

The post How the Internet Continue reading

1 … 145 146 147 148 149 … 160